He rose courteously at her approach, and held the chair for her to sit
down again. He looked incredibly tall as he stood over her, and
more formidable than ever, although he was smiling slightly.
'I have ordered fresh coffee,' he said. 'What little was left in the pot
was getting stale and bitter.'
Juliet glanced down at the cup in front of her. She didn't really want
any more coffee. If she drank too much of it in the evening then she
didn't sleep properly. But then she didn't actually expect to get
much sleep under the circumstances anyway, she thought wryly,
and lifted the cup to her lips.
The fresh, brew was hot, but it still had that faint bitterness Santino
had mentioned, and she put the cup down after a tentative sip with a
faint grimace.
'Can we go now?' she asked. 'I'm a working girl, remember? I can't
take too many late nights.'
'Your looks do not seem to have suffered from them so far,' he
commented, blowing a reflective smoke-ring.
She flushed and drank some more coffee to mask her
embarrassment. He sat, watching her, his eyes hooded and
meditative.
'I ask you one last time, Janina,' he said, and she wished, with a
sudden pang to hear her own name on his lips and not her sister's.
'Will you accept the money I have offered, go back to your own
country and leave my brother in peace?'
He sounded almost tired, she thought in surprise, perhaps even a
little dispirited. Maybe he wasn't used to people rejecting any offers
he decided to make them, whether on a personal or a business level.
She swallowed some more of the coffee, then said quickly, 'I can't.
It-it's too late. Please take my word for that.'
Later, much later, she thought, he would know what she'd meant by
her hurried words.
'Your word!' he repeated, and to her dismay all the former cynicism
and contempt had returned to his voice to wound her. Then he
laughed shortly. 'Finish your coffee, cara, and we'll go. There's
clearly no more to be said.'
Juliet finished the coffee and replaced the cup in its saucer. So it
was all over. Waiters were bowing and smiling as they left, and she
guessed that he must have settled the bill in her absence and added
a generous tip.
Fate played some strange tricks, she decided as she sat beside him
in the car and heard the engine purr into life. For one evening she
had lived like a millionairess, only to be accused of being a
gold-digger. That was an element that had been missing from all the
best fairy tales, she told herself. Prince Charming had never
accused Cinderella of being out for what she could get, nor had any
of King Cophetua's relatives offered to buy off the beggar-maid.
It was much easier to be Juliet Laurence, schoolteacher, she
thought, or would she find, when it came to it, that nothing was
going to be easy for her again? That was depressive talk, she
criticised herself robustly. Her pathetic charade had to come to an
end sooner or later, and it was better that it was sooner rather than
later when she considered some of the self-revelations that had
come to her during the evening. And she wanted it to be over.
There was pain and danger waiting on the path she had embarked
on so recklessly. Her own life might be dull in comparison, but at
least it was safe and real.
It was very warm in the car even though the side windows were
open to admit the evening air. In spite of herself, she could feel an
almost irresistible urge to yawn taking hold of her, and stifled it
guiltily, brushing a concealing hand across her mouth. Santino
Vallone, she thought, would definitely not be accustomed to women
who yawned in his company.
Yet it certainly wasn't boredom she was assailed by-she felt too
keyed up for that-but a sudden and inexplicable drowsiness which
she found herself fighting with a strange urgency.
Santino leaned forward and flicked a switch on the dashboard and
music began to play softly, with a slow sensuous beat which had an
increasingly soporific effect. She forced her weighted eyelids to
remain open and pulled herself into a more upright position in the
seat. There was no way- no way at all in which she was going to
sleep.
Now if she had been with Barry she would simply have succumbed,
putting her head on his shoulder and letting her drowsiness have its
way with her, but such an action would be unthinkable with a man
like Santino. Even if they had merely spent a pleasant evening in
each other's company with no ulterior motives on either side, she
would still have been chary at putting herself so completely at his
mercy.
She found another yawn threatening, and turned her head away to
hide it, gazing rather desperately out of the window. Darkness
outside the car, darkness within it, and the soft insistent rhythm of
the music-all of it lapping her like a warm blanket, infinitely
comforting, infinitely appealing. And all she had to do was let go
and slide down into the darkness, closing her weary eyes and not
even thinking any more because thinking, reasoning was too hard
when you were so nearly falling asleep.
Through the mists that were drowning her, smothering her, he heard
him say softly but with an underlying note of faint amusement,
'Why fight it, cara? Just close your eyes and enjoy the ride.'
It was the amusement that told her, and she grasped at it with the
last remnants of reason. Her mouth felt stiff as if it didn't belong to
her, and her voice seemed to come from a long way away as she
heard herself say, 'The coffee -what did you put in the coffee?'
His laughter, mocking and enigmatic, was the last thing she heard
as she fell asleep.
CHAPTER FOUR
She came awake slowly, her hand automatically reaching out to
grope for the alarm clock that she felt .must have triggered her
subconscious. But it wasn't the usual clutter of clock, lamp, the
novel she had been reading that her hand encountered. And as the
sun began to filter through her still-closed eyelids, she thought,
'How stupid. Of course, I'm still in Rome at Jan's flat. But I've been
dreaming about being at home.'
Then she opened her eyes and her first thought was that she was
dreaming still. For the room around her bore not the slightest
resemblance to the streamlined luxury at the flat. It was completely
and totally unfamiliar.
She sat up, accepting that there was a slight dull ache across her
forehead, her eyes questing round the room with increasing alarm.
It wasn't particularly large, but it had a formidable air which was
immediately apparent. Stone walls, their austerity unrelieved by any
kind of hangings or colour wash, massive furniture belonging to a
previous generation, small-paned windows set in deeply ledged
recesses. And the bed she was lying in surely belonged more
properly in a museum, she thought apprehensively as she gazed up
at the brocaded canopy over her head, and the long curtains that
swept down on either side of it. She supposed the curtains could be
drawn round the bed at night, but last night they had not been, They
had been looped back with heavily gilded and tasselled cords. The
sheets and pillowcases were of linen so fine that it felt like silk
against her skin, and they were edged with exquisite lace that even
her untrained eyes suggested was probably handmade.
Which brought her to the next realisation-that the sheet, and the
elaborately quilted and embroidered bedcover, were the only
covering she had. The colour stormed into her face. Someone had
brought her here, undressed her and put her to bed, and she had not
the slightest recollection of any of it happening. The last thing she
remembered, she forced her mind back, was music and the swift
motion of a car, and a man's voice.
She pressed her hands against her burning cheeks as her memory
began to stir sluggishly, and she began to recall all that had taken
place-when? The previous evening? It was difficult to say, but
surely she had not been to sleep for so very long?
There was a faint unpleasant taste in her mouth, and after a
moment's hesitation she reached for the carafe of fruit juice which
stood on the carved chest of drawers beside the bed and filled the
glass, draining it to the last drop. It was deliciously cool and
refreshing, and her head was beginning to clear that little bit more
with each minute that passed.
She looked rather desperately round the room. Where were the
clothes she had been wearing last night? she asked herself. There
was no doubt in her mind that wherever she was, Santino Vallone
had brought her there, and she writhed inwardly with shame at the
thought of herself naked and helpless under his cynical gaze.
She wanted to get out of bed and start looking in the huge,
elaborately carved wardrobe for something to wear, but her lack of
any kind of wrap made her hesitate, feeling vulnerable. After a
moment she dragged at the bedcover and twisted it around her
shoulders like some exotic Renaissance cloak. It wasn't an ideal
dressing gown by any means, but anything was better than nothing,
she thought as she climbed out of the high bed and trod across the
thick goatskin rug which was laid over the bare wooden floor.